Dayamani Barla's presentation at the San Jose Peace Center.

I am hopelessly behind in making short films out of the video footage I already have.
Here is one of Subhendu Ghosh when he visited the Bay Area September of last year. In this day and age you don’t find too many people like Subhendu Ghosh: people who are still singing songs of class struggle, of labor prevailing over the capitalists, of hope that things would turn upside down pretty soon.

SVPACC's town hall meeting held at Chandni Restaurant in Newark was attended by six people.
Why so few attendants?
Because the meeting was not publicized well.
Because no effort was done to obtain endorsements from other groups.
Because first generation Pakistanis, like other immigrants, are too busy with their economic survival to attend such meetings.

Town Hall Chandni
A town hall meeting to discuss political situation in Pakistan was called by Silicon Valley Pakistani American Council (SVPACC).

A closer look at the ice made through radiation heat loss to outer space.

Making ice through radiation heat loss

We have all heard of bygone desert people making ice under nighttime clear skies. The physics of that phenomenon is not too hard to understand. When you radiate to outer space, you are radiating to almost a 0 K object. [Remember that the space does not have a temperature—you can have temperature of an object, but you cannot have temperature of nothingness, which is what space is.]
Why nighttime? Because during the day even when the sky is clear there is too much scattered sunlight the water would be bombarded with.
Why do it in desert? Because a desert is normally very dry, its air is low in humidity and that means minimum obstruction between a body losing heat through radiation and outer space. So, if you can have water facing nighttime clear sky and the receptacle holding this water is so well insulated that heat from sides and bottom has a lot of difficulty being transferred to water then you can gradually cool water and eventually freeze it.

Fortunately I did not have to go to a desert to witness this phenomenon. I saw it in Rancho San Antonio Park where I often go for a walk. Lately the temperatures in Silicon Valley have been low--but still above freezing. Rancho San Anotonio Park has puddles from the last rain. I found puddles with vegetation around them to be still liquid, but a few which were very shallow and had maximum advantage to lose heat to nighttime clear sky were frozen. Ice was made through radiation heat loss.

Puddles exposed to clear skies froze.

Puddles surrounded by vegetation and rocks and with tree branches over them did not freeze.

Rancho San Antonio Park
Dew on grass blades.

Sunday, December 2, Tarun Tejpal met with activists belonging to FOSA (Friends of South Asia), Asha for Education, and AID (Association for India's development).

Tarun Tejpal, Editor of Tehelka.com

Tarun Tejpal, the king of “sting-journalism” in India, was the keynote speaker at the annual dinner of Indian Muslim Relief and Charities (IMRC). More than 150 people attended the program arranged at Muslim Community Association (MCA) in Santa Clara on Saturday, December 1.

Dyamani Barla spoke in Hindi. Shalini Gera of FOSA provided English translation for the benefit of non-Hindi speaking audience.

Anu Mandavilli of FOSA gave a brief introduction of Dayamani Barla and her work.

Dyamani Barla gave a talk at the San Jose Peace Center on Saturday, December 1. The program was arranged by Friends of South Asia (FOSA).